Of Non-Days & Songs That Are Out Of Control

Have you ever had one of those days that were full of good intentions and by the end of it you realise you had achieved very little? This could turn out to be one of those days if I don't do something productive soon. Hence this non-post.

I suppose I could credit among today's achievements the couple of hours I spent writing to someone I have never met who is really struggling to cope with her tinnitus; the glockenspiel practice I spent time on, so I'd be ready for percussion lessons I'm teaching tomorrow for a friend who is in America for three weeks; the processing I've been doing about a song I've been working on that will probably have to undergo a massive dose of therapy itself if I am to avoid trouble down the line ...

Songs can be uncontrollable children and this one certainly has been. I've mentioned in other posts that I find writing lyrics difficult, but I have read and heard many times the smug adage that many of the best-known songs have arrived fully-formed and that one should stop tinkering with them and get them finished, learned and shared and that, anyway, the best songs are always the ones you don't mess around with too much. That don't impress me much! I don't know if I shall ever experience such a pleasure or even that I actually agree with it. I do a lot of editing - sometimes over days, weeks, months or, in the case of a couple of songs, years - to make my words say exactly what I mean them to say. Perhaps it is a case of writing, writing, writing and occasionally the subconscious yields a gift as some sort of reward. I don't think I've written in sufficient quantity recently to merit that, although I have spent at least a couple hours most days practising and rehearsing. I don't know how people find the resources both to write and to practise. They require completely different frames of mind. Perhaps this non-post is an address to that very problem.

The most difficult bit for me is finding a subject sufficiently engaging that a song demands to be written - I put it down to my unprofessionalism and lack of imagination. I think this is one of the reasons I love Richard Thompson's songs so much. He seems so prolific and has covered a lot of subjects in his songs. He never seems short of places ito start. If he doesn't have an angry relationship situation to set down in a tear-stained song he'll imagine one, or he'll write about a motorbike, a lost love, a race horse, a Victorian beggar girl, an abused child, a night on the town, a fantasy wedding ... hell, he even managed to write a song about Sting! 

The lyrics of my new song appeared in a first draft quite quickly a couple of days ago at about three o'clock in the morning. By six a.m. I'd written three verses and a substantial chorus with a bridge. I'd even had ideas for the melodies for the bridge and the chorus that I noted down in my manuscript book. I'm trusting that whatever melody I compose for the verses will arrive at some point when I sit down with the intention of doing some work on it. However, the lyrics ... they are fierce and angry and, while that's not normally a problem, this time it is. I don't know whether that anger is justified or where it should be directed - which is just another way of avoiding admitting that I really need to look in the mirror. I have directed my anger at someone who didn't deserve it while I was being a prima donna. I let a personality glitch spill into the professional attitude of which I am so proud.

Have you ever met someone who was probably full of good intentions and they simply rubbed your ego up the wrong way? This was a case of that. I perceived a request being made, I offered a solution, the solution was rejected, I took it personally and the ointment I applied to my thin and bruised ego was to stop talking and retreat into my metaphorical ivory tower. Without giving too much away I talked it over briefly with the wise bass player last evening and I'm glad we found time for that brief exchange as he was preparing for a gig with his own band. Now I have to discipline my delinquent song. I've been thinking of ways to do that. Pity really, I did come up with some first-rate bitching!  

Notebooks and pencil on the bed and at the ready.

Of The Pleasure Of Small Gestures

Did I tell you about the early concerts I attended? They were life-changing events in that they are still with me fifty years later. I'm sixty-two and I feel myself slipping into life as one of those older people who loves to share stories of earlier years. If I find them so fascinatingly memorable, why doesn't everyone? In 1967, the so-called summer of love, I was one of the many swept up in, amongst other things, Monkeemania. There was something so appropriately sunny about the music, even when the subject matter was slightly daft ("Your Auntie Griselda"?), somewhat improbable ("Saturday's Child"?) or even downright stupid ("Look Out [Here Comes Tomorrow]"!). I enjoyed the weekly antics on the television show and bought the first three albums - Meet The Monkees, More Of The Monkees and Headquarters - as soon as they came out. I went to their show at the Empire Pool in Wembley, dressed in my Sunday suit, and experienced the grip of mass hysteria as I stood up on my seat and screamed like all the girls were doing. My mother, could only sit next to me in horror and amazement.  By the time we got to  "Piscces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Limited" and "The Birds, The Bees and The Monkees" my attention had moved elsewhere. My interest was raised again with "Head", but the relationship was never quite the same. That show was opened by Lulu. She was sunny, bubbly and totally inaudible, but I decided I loved her too. I bought several of her singles.

I had begun to devour the weekly music press at the age of twelve, starting with Disc & Music Echo, while John Peel had become my guru on the radio. I had listened to him on the independent radio ship, Radio London, and had reluctantly followed him to the BBC and their new venture, Radio 1. While never quite being able to forgive him for taking Auntie's shilling he did still play the most interesting music. He played Tyrannosaurus Rex every week and they became the next object of my adulation. Again I bought the first three albums the moment they were released. I had pestered the poor man behind the counter at the local Rumbelow's for weeks leading to the release of "My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair, But Now They're Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows" and I bought Marc Bolan's book of poems, "The Warlock Of Love", with similar haste. I was devastated when Steve Peregine Took left. He was my favourite - it wasn't just the long hair, the cloak and the percussion, but he added those strange and beautiful vocalisations to the songs. I was horrified when, in 1970, Jeff Dexter played "Ride A White Swan" over and over and over again at the Third Isle Of Wight Festival. I wasn't aware of the controversy caused by Bob Dylan's expansion into electric expression at the time, but I think I felt betrayed in the same way as John Cordwell who shouted, "Judas!" during the second half of the concert at The Free Trade Hall in Manchester on 17th May 1966. From that moment my relationship with Tyrannosaurus Rex was severed. I had been prepared to give the new man, Mickey Finn, a try but every further move into commercialism (including the unconscionable shortening of a great band name) distanced me more from the band.

At the height of my affection for Tyrannosaurus Rex, though, I begged my parents to let me go and see them play live. Obviously it was not feasible for a thirteen year-old to be allowed to attend one of the all-night gigs at Middle Earth in London that were the tofu of many legends in those days, but when the Babylonian Mouthpiece Show was organised at the Royal Festival Hall 3rd June 1968, my mum and dad relented and bought tickets for the whole family to attend.

This isn't my ticket, but wasn't far from where I sat.

The evening opened with Stefan Grossman. I seem to remember him singing the line, "Delia, I wanna steal ya", which made an impression on a young man who had yet to write his first song and a whole year before I plucked my first guitar string. After his set was David Bowie, who didn't sing a note that night. Instead, he danced/mimed his way through a story about a village being invaded by an army, I think. I could look this up, because someone is bound to know. I do remember this was the time of discontent over US involvement in Vietnam and at one point Bowie was heckled by a man with an American accent. Tyrannosaurus Rex were the final act of the evening and of course they were wonderful, but I was actually most taken by seeing Roy Harper play for the first time of what was to become many times. His second album, "Come Out Fighting, Ghengis Smith" had just been released and he was also singing songs from "Folkjokeopus", which wouldn't be released for a while to come.I remember my father laughing at a line in "She's The One" and my mother giving him a disapproving look. Roy Harper had mentioned "pants" - shocking. My two younger brothers slept through it all - pity, they'd have thought it very naughty and a lot of fun. I bought "Ghengis" within days of attending that concert and I played it almost literally to death. I made the mistake of using a brand of so-called record cleaner on it. This imbued the music with a hiss which over months became a storm of noise on the record that gradually obliterated the music altogether. I've kept the album, but it has been unlistenable for decades. From time to time I looked for a replacement in whatever format I could find, but nothing seemed available.

Recently I stumbled across Roy Harper's website. He seems to have most of the licenses to his recordings and is able to offer them as downloads. I jumped at the chance of buying a download copy of "Come Out Fighting, Ghengis Smith" and getting my ears wrapped around the title track that has been such an important influence on the way I make music now, or the mysterious "Highgate Cemetery", the doped up, "You Don't Need Money" and the extraordinary "Circle". Although my own parents never put me under the same pressure as the parents of the schoolboy in the song I identified very strongly with the protagonist - victim status has been fashionable for a very long time. As I was downloading the album and one or two others that caught my eye I also saw a hardback version of a book of Roy Harper's lyrics, photographs and recollections, "The Passions Of Great Fortune". I bought that too. I sent an e-mail message to the web-site sharing something of what I have written here. I didn't know if Roy Harper saw the e-mails that were directed to his site. A few days later a heavy package arrived from Ireland. It was my book. Indeed it is a beautiful volume and it was great to have the lyrics of most of the words in one place. As I opened it I came to the title page and there in thick black pen was a personal message from Roy Harper addressed to me and thanking me for my recollections. I cannot say just how much I was touched by this simple and thoughtful gesture. It's a lesson many could learn and a reminder to myself to try and be nice to people.

Coda
A couple of weeks ago I went to Norwich to see (and this time hear) Lulu in concert. She was, of course, superb. She has one of the finest rock voices this land has ever produced and, maybe I'm just an old softy, but I did find it very moving that she has only recently found her own voice as a songwriter along with the confidence to sing her own songs. I bought a signed copy of her cd of those songs. I do find great satisfaction in completing previously unfinished business, even if it takes me fifty years.

Of Right Times and Right Places

Any passing reader may be aware that my way of living is different from that of many. One of the consequences of living both in the Fens and the Alps is the probability that I shall be in an inconveniently distant location at any given time. Wrong place, wrong time could be on my coat of arms.   However, occasionally things come together in a most extraordinary way. Take a weekend earlier this year, for example. I had plans - some work, some play, lots of playing. Two days before a paid job, a social ceilidh in a village in the East Midlands, the gig was cancelled. I hadn't organised it.  Friends were playing as a scratch band, although we all play regularly in a number of combinations, we all take on the fixing and admin roles differently. Some like the clarity of a contract, others are more comfortable with a telephone call or a handshake. I tend towards the former. The fixer on this occasion seemed inclined to the latter. This meant that no cancellation arrangements were in place, including any arrangements for paying cancellation fees. In any life the loss of work at such short notice leaves little opportunity for replacing it, which is a bother. Just saying though that if you choose to renege on one of my contracts I will hunt you down ... On this occasion the evening wasn't entirely wasted. The bass player normally hosts an open mic evening on the first Friday of the month. The sudden hole in the calendar allowed him to undertake his hosting duties and gave me an audience for some Marshlander-style musical agitation.

After a rehearsal with a quintet led by my composer friend, Jane, in the morning, Saturday's plan was to take up an invitation to John's (a storyteller friend) birthday party. He had attained seventy years of age the previous weekend, but his work as a professional storyteller and poet had engaged him elsewhere. The party was at The Steamboat, apparently a well-known pub on the dockside in Ipswich. I would like to be able to say I like Ipswich. I'm sure it has a grand history, beautiful buildings, an engaged community and a thriving cultural scene, but I have not been there often enough to find any of these things. Coming from Norfolk I do know that my presence is not aways welcome among local football fans.

Ipswich does have a musical history though. Pretty much every touring band once played at the Odeon, later the Gaumont and now the Regent, but I have no idea if that is still the case. I'm talking about days when bands like the Small Faces and Pinkerton's Assorted Colours played in Heacham, in Norfolk, or when The Jimi Hendrix Experience rocked the Wellington Club in Dereham or The Rolling Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent played in Wisbech ... although I am sure the Ipswich venue was used beyond 1965.

Much of the area around the River Orwell in Ipswich is now given over to parking space, except that none of it is neither open to members of the public nor to casual visitors, such as I was that day. The effect of swathes of grey concrete fenced in behind chain-link or more substantial security fencing is to give the dock area the appearance of a town in distress, one deciding whether or not to recover from a war once it can raise some money. It was also frustrating to have found the pub, and see acres of parking all of which was inaccessible. On street parking near the pub was, quite naturally, full. I found a space outside a modern block of flats and reluctantly abandoned the van there. It wasn't clear whether parking was allowed, but there were other vehicles there already.

John, the celebrating storyteller, was at the bar and effusive in his welcome as I crept through the door to the saloon. Other guests were already present and I was introduced to members of his tribe. A small p.a. was set up and it appeared the festivities were going to take on a participatory element at some point. Having my guitar and footdrums in the van I offered my services which were accepted. That necessitated a twenty-minute round trek back to the van. I was relieved to find it still there and the instruments still inside. How nice, though, to be able to repay the pleasure I have received over many years working with John on various projects by sharing some of my creative efforts with him for a change. He seemed surprised as I suppose we might all be when we find that someone has another life outside any hole into which we have pigeoned them.

Sunday was another day. I had planned to meet Jane in Cromer. She and her artist partner, Bob, moved there recently and this happened to be also the weekend of Folk On The Pier, a folk festival in Cromer celebrating its wooden anniversary. As it happened another friend, Richard Penguin, was hosting a weekend of "Teatime Showcase" events and I arranged to meet Jane at the Cromer Social Club to enjoy the last of these. Walking into the Social Club all was not well. Richard was looking concerned and it transpired that the opening act was stuck on a bus between Cromer and Norwich and wouldn't be due to arrive until well after his set was due to start. That was a shock. I had no idea there would be a bus between Cromer and Norwich on a Sunday evening. Although I suppose I shouldn't have been, I was also surprised to find I had worked with most of the people on the programme in some capacity or other over the past thirty years. I had worked with the classes of the ex-teachers, and even in the same band as some of the performers. They didn't make it easy to predict that we would have previous connections since they had changed their real names to more innocent-sounding folksinger names - like I can complain about that! Seeing Richard's quandary I once more offered my services. Although he is a promotor, performer, radio show host, writer and raconteur, Richard didn't really know me as Marshlander - one man acoustic band and songwriter. Once again it was fun to subvert someone else's filing system. In fact he was so delighted he asked for an encore and publicly offered an invitation for a full set at next year's Teatime Showcase. 

So while I may spend a great deal of my time being in the wrong place, it is fun to enjoy an occasional weekend such as this where the stars align and form pretty patterns.